Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies


The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies is a UK governmental advisory body that advises central government in emergencies. It is usually chaired by the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser. Specialists from academia and industry, along with experts from within government make up the participation, which will vary depending on the emergency.

Structure and function

SAGE consists of around 20 participants at any one given time. Participants are drawn from both academia and practice, and the participants of a particular meeting are decided upon by the UK Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer for England depending on the expertise required. They are not generally employed by government. They do not operate under government instruction. In addition to these participants, SAGE is also attended by officials from relevant parts of government and arm's-length bodies who may contribute to discussions with relevant expertise, for instance, Public Health England and the Chief Scientific Advisors to government departments. The government does not have to act upon the conclusions of SAGE, and other bodies, including other sources of scientific advice, feed in to government's decisions. Only the UK Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer for England may talk on behalf of SAGE.
The UK Government is currently undergoing a review of the structure.

Outbreaks and pandemics

SAGE has advised the government on a number of events, including:
Early in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, SAGE was criticised for a lack of transparency. For their security and safety, and on advice from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the list of current members was not disclosed, although members may, and many did, reveal their own membership. Chris Whitty, speaking to the Health and Social Care Select Committee regarding the COVID-19 meetings of SAGE and the anonymity of its members, said that SAGE was "given quite clear advice from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, basically based on the fact that SAGE is a sub-committee of COBRA". Patrick Vallance argued in a letter to Parliament that scientists were protected by the anonymity from "lobbying and other forms of unwanted influence". Membership of SAGE and its subcommittees was then later published on 4 May 2020.
Although not prohibited, until the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it is believed that political advisors had never attended SAGE meetings in any capacity nor is there evidence for 10 Downing Street officials attending these meetings too. It was reported that Dominic Cummings and Ben Warner had attended COVID-19 meetings. Their attendance and participation was widely criticised, in particular by other attendees "shocked, concerned and worried for the impartiality of advice".
A report in The Guardian stated that attendees at an April 2020 meeting of the group included:
Senior advisers:
Medical and scientific experts:
Political advisers:
Vallance has written that SAGE includes scientists and experts from more than twenty separate institutions. SAGE also contains four expert groups which may each have as low as five and as many as over forty members.
Dominic Cummings was confirmed by 10 Downing Street to have attended a 23 March meeting, but the government said Cummings was not a member of SAGE. The attendance and participation by Prime Ministerial advisors caused much criticism. It was reported that one participant considered that Cummings' interventions had sometimes inappropriately influenced what is supposed to be an impartial scientific process; another expressed shock when Cummings first began participating in SAGE discussions, in February, viewing this as unwanted political influence on what should be "unadulterated scientific data".

May 2020

In May 2020, Professor Neil Ferguson resigned from SAGE after The Telegraph revealed he had violated lockdown rules to meet with a partner. The same day of his resignation, a list of SAGE participants was published by the UK Government, 4 May 2020. However, it notes that: "Permission to publish names was requested from all participants. Those who did not give permission have not been named." In addition: "These meetings are also regularly attended by officials from Her Majesty’s Government. These attendees have not been named." No reason for the secrecy is provided. Two attendees did not give permission to be named. Attendees as of May 2020 included:
In July 2020, the participants list was updated to reflect recent meetings. Professor Neil Ferguson was featured on the list. Attendees as of July 2020 included:
The questions raised about the transparency and possible political interference of SAGE during the COVID-19 pandemic, have raised concerns about trust in public health messaging by opposition parties and others. As an alternative, a group of scientists created , chaired by Sir David Anthony King a former Government Chief Scientific Advisor, in early May 2020 to "provide a clear structure on which an effective policy should be based given the inevitability that the virus will continue to cross borders" and warned against ending lock-down prematurely in places like schools.